Silent Witness

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Did you have patients back in Washington?”

  Shaking her head, Ellen said wryly, “You aren’t going to believe this, Jim, but it’s too painful for me to be a therapist. That’s why I went to work on the mind-set of bank robbers, to create a profile on them for the FBI. I guess I’m incapable of staying at arm’s length with people’s feelings. Mom calls me empathetic—I feel another person’s pain. I’m not apologizing for it either. I’d rather be in touch with my emotions than suppress them. And that’s what I’d have to do in order to be a psychotherapist with patients.”

  “You used all your skills today. I saw how you worked with Tommy.”

  “My education does come in handy every once in a while.” Ellen flashed him a hopeful smile. “I’m glad you see me as a positive now, and not a negative.”

  “You weren’t the problem,” he said apologetically. “It was me, Ellen. Having a partner isn’t so bad, after all.”

  “I think you were so used to working by yourself that when I crashed into your life out of the blue, it threw you off balance.” She laughed. Her anxiety over his unexpected caress melted into raw need. Ellen wanted to sit here and just talk with him—about so many things. To explore Jim on all levels. When he touched her shoulder once more, she sighed in response.

  “You always seem to know when I need that,” she murmured. His hand was butterfly light, and she ached for more contact.

  The desire to lean over and kiss her nearly overwhelmed Cochrane. Shocked by his need, he cleared his throat. “Get going, Ellen. I know you’re trying to line up an apartment. You’ve got plenty on your plate even after work. I’m going to drop over to see my daughter. I’ll be home after that, trying to catch up on our other cases. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Ellen felt relief, then sharp disappointment. She had seen the look in Cochrane’s eyes: he’d wanted to kiss her. Even more shocking, she’d wanted him, too. “Okay. I hope you enjoy your time with Merry. You’re right, I’ve got a list of apartments to call about and then check out.” She raised her eyebrows. “Then I’m going to unexpectedly drop in for a visit with Ann Hawkins.” She lifted her hand. “See you later, Jim.”

  As she scooted out of the car, Ellen felt deeply for him. Even mentioning his little girl’s name made his eyes lighten with love. As she closed the door and turned toward the hotel, she found herself wanting him to look at her the same way.

  ANN HAWKINS’S FACE mirrored surprise and then shock when she opened the door to Ellen.

  “Hi, Lieutenant Hawkins. May I come in? I’ve got a few more questions that need to be answered.” Ellen saw the redness around the woman’s eyes and knew that she had been crying.

  “Well, I guess.” Ann hesitated. “Come on in.”

  “I know this is an awkward time,” Ellen said as she entered the foyer of the apartment. “I appreciate your letting me in.”

  After shutting the door, Ann ushered her into a small, cozy living room filled with Japanese black lacquered bamboo furniture. “I thought the investigation was over,” she said, gesturing for Ellen to sit on the beige-and-green couch.

  Ellen eased onto the sofa. “We’re still collecting evidence.” She opened her briefcase and took out her notepad and tape recorder. “You went with Susan to the Ares Conference, didn’t you?”

  Ann became more guarded. “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, aside from dealing with some of the squadron boys, the Ares Conference is another logical place to investigate.” Ellen wouldn’t mention the photos or the file they’d gotten from Susan’s condo. At least, not yet.

  Ann stood, folded her arms across her chest and paced the length of the room. “I don’t know anything,” she said in a clipped tone.

  Ellen sensed the woman’s mounting nervousness and decided to pull back a little in her questioning. “Can you go over the last phone conversation you had with Susan before she died?”

  Whirling around, Ann snapped, “I don’t want to talk about anything, Agent Tanner. It’s too much. I—I’m too upset!”

  Ellen set aside her notes and shut off the tape recorder. She stood, her gaze locked with Ann Hawkins’s tear-filled eyes. “Something happened, didn’t it, Ann?” Ellen softened her voice. “Susan was a very unique woman. You were her best friend, her confidante. What aren’t you telling us? You know her father is blaming Susan and calling her a coward for taking her own life. I think you can help us. Please?”

  Tears streamed down Ann’s taut face as she pulled her arms tighter around herself. “I just can’t,” she cried. “If I do, I’m the one who will suffer.”

  “How’s that?” Ellen whispered.

  “My career! I lied to you in that interview. I panicked because I was afraid of getting in trouble.”

  “Ann, if you love Susan, and I know you do, I think you’ll take the high ground on this investigation. Would Susan have lied to us about you to protect herself?”

  Shaken, Ann looked away and her shoulders drooped.

  The tension was palpable between the two women. Ann seemed to struggle against a barrage of emotions. Ellen waited, allowing the silence and pressure to build.

  “Would you turn off that thing?” Ann gestured angrily toward the tape recorder.

  “I already have.” Ellen showed her the machine.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her anger seeming to dissolve. “Susan called me the night she died.” Wiping tears away with trembling fingers, she continued, “Only, I wasn’t home. Oh, God, I wish I’d been here for her. I’m sure I could have stopped her.” Ann covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  Ellen put her arm around the woman’s waist and led her to the couch. “Come on, sit down,” she coaxed. Once she located a box of tissues nearby, she handed several to her.

  “Th-thanks.” Blotting her red eyes, Ann whispered in a choked tone, “Susan’s message was on my phone recorder when I got home at 0300.” Blowing her nose, she added, “When I heard her voice, I went into shock.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m so ashamed of myself—of what I did.”

  Ellen’s fingers tightened on the woman’s shoulder. “What did you do?”

  “I was a real coward.” Ann’s lower lip trembled. “I was afraid for my career, so I drove to the nearby convenience store and stopped at a pay phone. I didn’t want the call to be traced to my apartment, in case something happened.”

  “I see.”

  Raising her head, Ann said in a raw voice, “I made that 911 call to the La Mesa Police Department. Then I drove over to Susan’s. The police were already there. I didn’t stay long because I knew the worst had happened. I don’t know how I got home, I was crying so hard. I was so worried, so ashamed of myself, my cowardice.”

  “You did what you felt was right,” Ellen said consolingly.

  “It was too late, too late.”

  “Do you still have that tape?” Ellen asked, holding her breath in anticipation.

  Ann dabbed at her eyes. “Yes, I have the tape. I—I should have told you before.” She gazed miserably at Ellen. “I’m not the friend Susan thought I was. But it really doesn’t matter, does it? I lied to an investigator and I’ll pay the price. I didn’t help Susan when she needed me the most.”

  THE DOORBELL KEPT RINGING. With notes and legal papers strewn across his belly, Cochrane had fallen asleep on his couch. The doorbell jerked him awake, and when he sat up, the notes fluttered all over the polished white pine deck. He rubbed his face and looked at his watch: 2330. Who the hell was at his door at this time of night? Disgruntled, he got to his feet.

  “Hold your horses! I’m coming, I’m coming,” he yelled down the passageway. Pushing strands of hair off his forehead, he jerked the door open. Ellen Tanner stood there, her face flushed, her eyes bright with anticipation.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked thickly, though he was glad to see her.

  “Yes,” she said excitedly, “I do.” She brushed past Cochrane. “You’ve got to hear this, Jim!” She dug into her b
riefcase and produced a small cassette tape. “I went over to Ann Hawkins’s place and we hit pay dirt.”

  Frowning, Jim took the tape and rubbed his eyes. “What are you rattling on about?” Her cheeks were tinged with pink and her eyes were dancing. She was the last person he’d expected to see, but the one he most wanted to. He’d been feeling damn lonely tonight. Ellen filled his heart and made him hope again.

  “Susan called Ann the night she died. She left a message on this tape. You’ve got to hear it, Jim! Right now! It’s going to help us,” Ellen said breathlessly.

  He turned and led her to his bedroom. The place was a mess, the bed unmade. He went to his dresser, where he pulled out a cassette tape player. “Let’s mosey to the kitchen. This had better be good, Ellen. I was asleep,” he growled.

  “I think you’ll forgive me after you hear the tape.” In her eyes he looked like a disheveled, vulnerable little boy. Jim’s eyes were puffy, his movements slow, his speech even more thickly accented than normal. Her heart opened widely, and all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and hold him. What was it about Jim Cochrane?

  “Don’t count on it.” They sat down at the kitchen table, the only family heirloom Jim had begged from his parents. It was an old hand-hewn, maple table that he’d eaten all his meals on while growing up. Still groggy, he had trouble placing the tape into the recorder. Ellen shifted from foot to foot, obviously unable to contain her excitement.

  Clicking the machine on, Jim turned up the volume.

  “Ann? This is Susan. By the time you get this message, it will be all over. You’re my best friend. I’m sorry, so sorry, but I can’t go on like this. Jesus, I don’t want to die, but I don’t see any other way out of this. S-something horrible happened at Ares, you were right. Something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t tell you. Not even you. I can’t let it be found out. P-please forgive me. We’ve been through so much together. Goodbye. Tell my brothers…tell them I love them. I’m such a coward at heart. A failure. I hope you can forgive me for what I’ve done. I hope all women can forgive me. Goodbye, dear friend…”

  Jim’s fatigue vanished. He sat there, stunned by the anguished last words of Susan Kane. Barely aware that Ellen had sat down at his elbow, he rewound the tape and played it again. This time, he took his pad and pencil and wrote down some of the phrases. After the second time, he shut off the machine and looked at Ellen. “Ann Hawkins had this tape all along?”

  “Yes, and she was afraid to tell us about it.”

  He sat there for a long minute, pondering the notes he’d written. “This is a nice piece of work, Ellen.”

  She smiled. “Even if I roused you out of a dead sleep?”

  “You did the right thing.” He tapped the pencil against the pad. “‘Something horrible happened at Ares. I can’t let it be found out.’” He glanced at Ellen. “Mighty interesting statements, aren’t they?”

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Ellen said, “Yes. I was so excited by this information that I had a hard time driving over here. I must have gotten lost five times before I found your place.”

  Chuckling, Cochrane got up and poured himself a glass of water and drank. When he put the glass on the counter, he said, “Well, all the evidence was pointing to a suicide. What we were missing was a suicide note.” He tapped the cassette tape. “This clears up that missing link. Now I reckon we should aim our investigation at what Susan was hiding regarding the Ares Conference. And that makes the file we found at her condo very valuable.”

  “Something terrible must have happened. What else could make Susan take her own life?”

  “Good question,” Jim said as he sat back down. He fingered the tape recorder. “She sounded desperate, felt as if she was a failure.”

  “I know.”

  “I found out off-the-record from my JAG friend Hillyer that a hell of a lot went on at Ares. Hillyer spends a lot of time with the Top Guns over at the O Club at Giddings. He’s a good resource for me.” Jim shook his head. “But I can’t believe a leg shaving, butt pinching or being groped in a passageway would make Susan Kane want to die. That doesn’t make a pile of sense.”

  “Jim, don’t jump to that conclusion. One person’s depth of shame might not be someone else’s. Susan was walking a tightrope, especially here at the station. Even Ann said that Susan’s most important duty was to serve as a perfect role model for other women. What meant more to Susan than anything—her image?”

  Jim heaved a sigh. “There’s a list of possibilities. Could Susan have gotten drunk? Slept with another aviator? Was the aviator a male or female? And was she being pressured by that partner? The scenarios and motives are endless. One thing I’ve learned in my years as an investigator is not to guess. We need facts.” Cochrane rubbed his unshaved jaw and continued to think out loud. “No, it might not be so obvious. Maybe something else…”

  Eagerly, Ellen stood up and brought her briefcase into the kitchen. She set it on the table and opened it. “When I left Hawkins’s place, I dug through Susan’s Ares file, and look what else I found.” She pulled out another packet of photos. “These are the other pictures Susan was referring to in her letter to Tommy. The ones she’d been collecting and hadn’t sent him yet. Cameras supposedly weren’t allowed at the conference. It’s obvious that Susan had collected the pictures from many sources. And they are incriminating, from what I can see. But you’d be a better judge.”

  Jim scowled. Silence settled in the kitchen as he studied each photo carefully. His mouth tightened and he glanced up at Ellen. “Yeah, you’re right on all accounts. These are damning photos.”

  “If my memory serves, didn’t the Tailhook scandal happen because aviators and others came forward with photos to identify the guilty parties?” She pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.

  “Yes, ma’am. There’s a central computer back in the Pentagon at BUPERS, the Bureau of Naval Personnel, that has pictures of every person in the military. They scanned the photos, sent them to BUPERS. When they got a match, they had a name to put with a face. Then these individuals were questioned as to what they saw and so on.”

  “Why couldn’t we use that computer system now?” Ellen asked.

  Jim rubbed his eyes, then spread out the photos. “I’m sure we’d be able to, and it’s a good idea. Since Tailhook, there’s been a genuine effort to make the Navy gender neutral. Judging by some of these photos, sexism isn’t dead, after all.”

  Turning several over, Ellen said, “I already checked the backs of these photos, and there are no names on any of them. No source or date, either. I haven’t really studied the pictures too closely. I was hoping Susan might be in one of them.” Her heart picked up in beat as they sat side by side. Jim was so close, so agonizingly close. Perhaps she was too tired, or maybe too excited about her coup, but all Ellen wanted to do was turn and throw her arms around his shoulders, squeeze the hell out of him and celebrate their victory. How long had it been that she wanted to share anything, good or bad, with a man?

  “You don’t know my luck, Ellen. That would be too good to be true,” Cochrane drawled as he sifted through the photos. “That’d be as unlikely as a fifth ace showing up in a poker game.”

  “I’d say having these photos is a fifth ace that just came our way. We can examine the ones that Tommy gave us, too.” Ellen slowly sorted through them. “You’re right. From the looks of some of these shots, not everyone was on their best behavior, were they?”

  “Wait! That’s another tie!” Cochrane said, straightening. A lopsided grin spread across his features. “The good-conduct medal was missing from Susan’s uniform! I’ll be damned! Something did happen at Ares! Something that made her take off that medal before she died. In her own way, she was clueing us in. I was just too darn stupid to note that it was missing.”

  Ellen’s eyes widened considerably. She placed her hands on her hips and stretched her back as she straightened. “Okay, but what happened? Who was involved?”

  “We probably won’
t find out until we begin interviewing the jocks over at Top Gun. Most all of them were at that conference, according to my info.” Cochrane looked with disgust at some of the photos. “Wednesday is the earliest we’ll be able to interview them. I’ll make a call to BUPERS and get us hooked into the main computer for identification purposes tomorrow morning. We’ll scan these photos and send them by e-mail to the Pentagon. As soon as we get names, we can compile a list for interviewing.”

  “What if some of the people are on a carrier? Or at an overseas station?”

  “No problem.” Cochrane shrugged. “We make a phone call via satellite hookup to their ship or station. We’ve got an Iridium sat phone at JAG.”

  “That sounds like a plan, Jim.” Ellen saw the glint in his eyes, like a dog on a scent. There was no question he loved this detective work, and she did, too. Even more, she liked being in his company. Feeling happy, yet unsettled, Ellen realized that she was now ready to move on. She could keep Mark in her heart but she had to focus on her present and future. And with one heated look, Jim awakened her dormant sexuality and longing. She wanted a special man in her life. Her emotions felt out of control just then, so she tucked them away for later, in the quiet of her hotel room.

  “I’ll start making calls tomorrow, Ellen. In the meantime, you can leave the two packets with me. I want to look at our information a little more closely.” Jim gathered the photos and pushed them to the side of the table.

  “No problem. I’ll see you at 0800 tomorrow?” A part of her didn’t want to leave. She was alone here with Jim. Her heart clamored for closeness with him. What should she do? Jim would not initiate any serious intimacy. He was an officer and a gentleman. Yet he seemed to feel the same attraction. Had she read the intent in his eyes correctly? Ellen gulped, feeling unsure of herself.

  “Zero eight hundred is fine.” Then he added, with a note both of teasing and sarcasm, “I didn’t think you civilians started before 0900.”